Hydranet triradial vs. 3Di Nordac/Endurance

[sailjumanji]

Our Seawind 1000 sails were Pentex with tafetta. They were ten years old when we sold that boat last year and still had great shape. At about 8 yrs old we started seeing a light dusting of mildew. We live in humid Texas, had a good stack pack, and the sail maker treated them with mildewcide when new. We treated them well, but they got used, and even raced occasionally.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Just one data point on laminate sails --

Which may add some evidence that newer laminate technology is very different and much longer lasting than the original.

While it is a single blue paper published by North about the life expectancy of their own sails, I'm doubting this info is based on one data point since they are probably the one of the largest sail makers in the world.

It's great that you've had good life carbon lams and found that they work well in combination w/an in mast furler. Will agree it makes sense that your in mast furler would work better w/a lam than an old baggy sail that could possibly jam it.


Bill O.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Bill O

While it is a single blue paper published by North about the life expectancy of their own sails, I'm doubting this info is based on one data point since they are probably the one of the largest sail makers in the world.. . .

Naturally -- and I don't claim to know more than my own individual experience. As I said, I'm just providing one data point, but perhaps a data point worthy of investigation to see if others are having similar experiences. I'm interested myself.

[Kestrahl]

Not looking so good for the Nordac 3di

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Kestrahl

Not looking so good for the Nordac 3di

What happened or should I say how did it happen?

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Kestrahl

Not looking so good for the Nordac 3di

This looks like an in-mast furling mainsail which was rolled up with some baggy areas which got folded inside the roll and left that way long enough to take a permeant crease.

I also particularly like the nice ragged leech. Quite a nice mainsail, I'd say. Best just roll it back up and leave it that way while you motor whereever you want to go.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Kestrahl

When they first came out there was a lot of breakages on older race yachts from the extra shock loads. I've had a few cruisers comment that there is less shock loading and more comfortable sailing even going from spectra laminate sails to Hydra-Net ( ocean crossings ).

North 3Di - Sailing Anarchy - Sailing Anarchy Forums

Back in the 80's when Kevlar first came out many of the race boats immediately started breaking mainsail outhaul cars; the Kevlar leeches transferred all the shocks to the mainsail sheeting system. The Dacron sails had some give (stretch).

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Just one data point on laminate sails …

I have carbon/technora laminate sails made from Bainbridge cloth by a respected English sailmaker. For durability they have taffeta on both sides, so not the lightest sails in the world, but still about half the weight of the previous Dacron sails. I'm in my fifth year of hard sailing with them including three round trips to the end of the Baltic Sea and back to the Solent, and one round trip to Northern Greenland and back to Cowes, which is about 13,000 miles.

I use them very carefully, especially what concerns chafe, but these are long trips in high latitudes so lots of tough weather, very many Force 8 days, so I find the lack of any signs of wear to be remarkable -- they are not so far showing the slightest sign of wear and the shape has not changed at all. There is not the slightest sign of delamination and no mildew despite the damp climate. They were expensive, but having provided so many thousands of miles of excellent sailing, and with no end in sight, I am now considering this the best money I ever spent on my boat.

I am very impressed by this account of your experience with the laminated carbon/technora sails. Five years while cruising in the North Sea in up to force 8 winds, and no wear or damage. Remarkable! (no sarcasm intended).

I see from your profile you have a 54 moody. Can you tell us a little more about the boat and these sails?

I assume that they are paneled triradial sails from a laminated material containing carbon and technora covered in a double taffeta.

What size jib? Main? What weight fabric? How do you deal with reducing sail area in the heavier breezes? Are the sails ever taken down?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by wingssail

I am very impressed by this account of your experience with the laminated carbon/technora sails. Five years while cruising in the North Sea in up to force 8 winds, and no wear or damage. Remarkable! (no sarcasm intended).

I see from your profile you have a 54 moody. Can you tell us a little more about the boat and these sails?

I assume that they are paneled triradial sails from a laminated material containing carbon and technora covered in a double taffeta.

What size jib? Main? What weight fabric? How do you deal with reducing sail area in the heavier breezes? Are the sails ever taken down?

Well, the boat is an English Moody from 2001, one of the last ones before the yard went out of business in the 2000's after 150 years of yacht making. She was designed by Bill Dixon and has a modest rig with 16.5 SA/D but rather lighter than similar Oysters with D/L of less than 200, due to fully cored and Kevlar skinned hull. It's a good combination for higher latitudes as the hull is easily driven and the rig is reasonably compact (75' mast) so not too draggy for strong conditions, but she's not particularly fast for her size in light wind. But light wind is not usually a problem up here, so we do 200 mile days fairly often (best ever day 218 miles).


The Selden rig has three aft-swept spreaders with all the disadvantages of that configuration, and you can't bend the heavy in-mast furling mast. But on the plus side it's as solid as the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a masthead cutter rig with runners, boom-end sheeting, a wide jumbo size Lewmar traveler system with dedicated winches, a powerful Selden gas strut vang, 8 cockpit winches, 4 of which are electric, so every sail control you can have with a cruising oriented boat.



I have two alternative headsails -- a 95% blade jib with 3 dimensional sheet leads, and a 120% yankee like the original one, both made of carbon/technora laminate. The blade gets used 90% of the time as it is far superior upwind to the yankee, far superior in strong conditions, and gives up only surprisingly little in lighter conditions. These are big sails so I don't change them at sea (I could with adequate crew, but I have never done it yet).



Yes, they are all triradial laminate made up of panels. They are covered in Dyneema taffeta on both sides, which is slippery and incredibly chafe-resistant but the taffeta does add bulk and weight compared to naked laminate sails like racers use.


Keen sailors with in-mast furling take advantage of the easy and infinite reefing of the mainsail, and the good shape of the reefed in-mast furling main, to avoid reefing the headsails in order to keep them working at their best efficiency. So I literally never reef my blade jib, I just roll in the main as necessary to regulate sail area and leave the blade alone. I do reef the yankee -- it has foam pads for two reefing positions, but this is sub-optimal as even with the foam pads the shape sucks after putting a roll in it.


Therefore in wind of over 15 knots or so I am faster with the blade and with much better upwind performance.



The laminate sails have yet another big advantage -- the total lack of stretch gives a much wider range of shape adjustment, including, in the case of the mainsail, the possibility of trimming it almost completely flat. So not only is it easy and fast to reduce the mainsail area, but I get the equivalent of an entire reef position just from flattening the mainsail right down with vang and outhaul.


Like that I can carry the full sail plan, when the blade is up, right up to about 30 knots apparent, on some points of sail, like a close reach. My record 218 mile day last summer was done like that -- on the way from the Faroe Islands to Orkneys in a F6-7 on a close reach. Heeling only 15 degrees or so and flying through the water with many 10+ mile hours. With the full sail plan up including the staysail. I could never do anything like that with the old sails -- By 25 knots apparent I would have reefed both main and yankee and would be flirting with heel and weather helm if I were trying to go fast. The much lower drag of the laminate sails, properly trimmed, dramatically reduce heel and helm, and raise the wind limits for all the sail plan combinations. Best money I ever spent on the boat.





P.S. Another big boost to the efficiency of this sail plan comes from the three dimensional sheeting of the blade jib. Very small tweaks of clew position of a high aspect sail like this make huge differences in how the sail draws, and another trick for avoiding reefing the jib is to tweak the clew a bit outboard and sheet in hard, to feather it a bit as you would do with the main. Downside of very high aspect sails like this is the huge forces on the sheet and therefore on the sheet lead system -- I pulled the Mark I version of the sheet lead system right through the rail, the first year, and spent quite a bit of time and money getting it strong enough. Another year I pulled another block right through the deck. The forces are huge, and somewhat hard to deal with.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, the boat is an English Moody from 2001, one of the last ones before the yard went out of business in the 2000's after 150 years of yacht making. She was designed by Bill Dixon and has a modest rig with 16.5 SA/D but rather lighter than similar Oysters with D/L of less than 200, due to fully cored and Kevlar skinned hull. It's a good combination for higher latitudes as the hull is easily driven and the rig is reasonably compact (75' mast) so not too draggy for strong conditions, but she's not particularly fast for her size in light wind. But light wind is not usually a problem up here, so we do 200 mile days fairly often (best ever day 218 miles).


The Selden rig has three aft-swept spreaders with all the disadvantages of that configuration, and you can't bend the heavy in-mast furling mast. But on the plus side it's as solid as the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a masthead cutter rig with runners, boom-end sheeting, a wide jumbo size Lewmar traveler system with dedicated winches, a powerful Selden gas strut vang, 8 cockpit winches, 4 of which are electric, so every sail control you can have with a cruising oriented boat.



I have two alternative headsails -- a 95% blade jib with 3 dimensional sheet leads, and a 120% yankee like the original one, both made of carbon/technora laminate. The blade gets used 90% of the time as it is far superior upwind to the yankee, far superior in strong conditions, and gives up only surprisingly little in lighter conditions. These are big sails so I don't change them at sea (I could with adequate crew, but I have never done it yet).



Yes, they are all triradial laminate made up of panels. They are covered in Dyneema taffeta on both sides, which is slippery and incredibly chafe-resistant but the taffeta does add bulk and weight compared to naked laminate sails like racers use.


Keen sailors with in-mast furling take advantage of the easy and infinite reefing of the mainsail, and the good shape of the reefed in-mast furling main, to avoid reefing the headsails in order to keep them working at their best efficiency. So I literally never reef my blade jib, I just roll in the main as necessary to regulate sail area and leave the blade alone. I do reef the yankee -- it has foam pads for two reefing positions, but this is sub-optimal as even with the foam pads the shape sucks after putting a roll in it.


Therefore in wind of over 15 knots or so I am faster with the blade and with much better upwind performance.



The laminate sails have yet another big advantage -- the total lack of stretch gives a much wider range of shape adjustment, including, in the case of the mainsail, the possibility of trimming it almost completely flat. So not only is it easy and fast to reduce the mainsail area, but I get the equivalent of an entire reef position just from flattening the mainsail right down with vang and outhaul.


Like that I can carry the full sail plan, when the blade is up, right up to about 30 knots apparent, on some points of sail, like a close reach. My record 218 mile day last summer was done like that -- on the way from the Faroe Islands to Orkneys in a F6-7 on a close reach. Heeling only 15 degrees or so and flying through the water with many 10+ mile hours. With the full sail plan up including the staysail. I could never do anything like that with the old sails -- By 25 knots apparent I would have reefed both main and yankee and would be flirting with heel and weather helm if I were trying to go fast. The much lower drag of the laminate sails, properly trimmed, dramatically reduce heel and helm, and raise the wind limits for all the sail plan combinations. Best money I ever spent on the boat.





P.S. Another big boost to the efficiency of this sail plan comes from the three dimensional sheeting of the blade jib. Very small tweaks of clew position of a high aspect sail like this make huge differences in how the sail draws, and another trick for avoiding reefing the jib is to tweak the clew a bit outboard and sheet in hard, to feather it a bit as you would do with the main. Downside of very high aspect sails like this is the huge forces on the sheet and therefore on the sheet lead system -- I pulled the Mark I version of the sheet lead system right through the rail, the first year, and spent quite a bit of time and money getting it strong enough. Another year I pulled another block right through the deck. The forces are huge, and somewhat hard to deal with.

Thank you for the detail. It sounds like the boat is a good sailer and you know how to sail it. Interesting the loads that the laminate sails impart to the deck hardware. We have similar problems. I also wonder what you would do, sail combination wise, in, say 30-35 true. I think you'd be forced to roll up (partially or completely) the headsail. Anyway, I'm sure you have it sorted out.

I remain impressed by the longevity you are getting. (13,000 miles over 5 years). This looks to me like quite a lot of sailing every year, either 15 x 24 hour days, or 37 x 10 hour days, and for 5 years, year in and year out, and no wear or damage...that's really good and gives me hope for a long life from my sails. I will say that rolling them on a furler is probably very much better than folding of flaking, and the jib is not hitting the mast on tacks so that is also good for durability.

Anyhow, this is all good reading for me, thanks again.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by wingssail

. . . I also wonder what you would do, sail combination wise, in, say 30-35 true. I think you'd be forced to roll up (partially or completely) the headsail. Anyway, I'm sure you have it sorted out. . .

Over about 30 knots apparent, or somewhat less if hard on the wind or running free (or if I'm sailing conservatively), I start reducing the sail plan. On most points of sail I get rid of the jib altogether and sail with the staysail and reefed main.


Downwind I get rid of the mainsail and use the jib alone.


The only time I ever reefed the jib was running off in a F9 in the North Sea when the full jib alone was too much, and I didn't want to switch to the staysail because I wanted the center of effort to be as far forward as possible.

[CaptRehab]

I am having a Hydranet Tri-radial fully battened mainsail made for my Nautitech 441 at Voile Caraibe Incidences in Martinique. I am hoping it will maintain its shape for a long time. I like to sail whenever possible. The jib is a simple cross cut Dacron but only 2 years old. I considered the 3DI Nordac cruising sail but felt that the higher modulus oriented fibers would be a better match for the high loads on the catamaran. Reefing at the proper time should also help extend the life of the sail

[Swift Drift]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Just one data point on laminate sails --



Which may add some evidence that newer laminate technology is very different and much longer lasting than the original.


I have carbon/technora laminate sails made from Bainbridge cloth by a respected English sailmaker. For durability they have taffeta on both sides, so not the lightest sails in the world, but still about half the weight of the previous Dacron sails. I'm in my fifth year of hard sailing with them including three round trips to the end of the Baltic Sea and back to the Solent, and one round trip to Northern Greenland and back to Cowes, which is about 13,000 miles.



I use them very carefully, especially what concerns chafe, but these are long trips in high latitudes so lots of tough weather, very many Force 8 days, so I find the lack of any signs of wear to be remarkable -- they are not so far showing the slightest sign of wear and the shape has not changed at all. There is not the slightest sign of delamination and no mildew despite the damp climate. They were expensive, but having provided so many thousands of miles of excellent sailing, and with no end in sight, I am now considering this the best money I ever spent on my boat. Woven sails, including I think Hydranet, would have long since lost their shape -- I suppose I would have had to replace them a couple of times already to maintain a good shape.



So I would recommend to the OP that he give some thought to laminate. These are not your father's laminate sails! -- the "short lifespan of laminate sails" may no longer be based on fact. I used to think this was true also, but my sailmaker that the newer materials last 2 to 3 times longer than the old ones used to. I was somewhat skeptical then, but not anymore.



So I personally will never have anything else than laminate sails, on any boat. The joy of sailing with really good sails is pretty hard to describe. Suddenly all your controls have a big effect. Suddenly you can vary the sail shape from full and powerful to flat and dragless and everything in between, and you can really sail, especially upwind. Furthermore you can sail in rather higher wind speeds without reefing, because you can flatten the sail to reduce drag when it blows.



I had the same question about using non-traditional sails with in-mast furling, but I can say now that the thinner and more flexible your sails are, the better in-mast furling works. People who have trouble with in-mast furling are mostly, I'm convinced, trying to furl baggy, thick Dacron sails which don't want to roll up into a thin roll. Laminate is a totally different ballgame.


For the mainsail of an in-mast furling boat, which lives a charmed life rolled up inside the mast, and which can be fairly easily isolated from chafe on most boats, I think one might even consider a racing sail without the taffeta. This would be cheaper, much lighter (I guess the taffeta is half the weight), roll up even that much better, and be super cool.





Also a good laminate mainsail will let you claw back a ton of the performance you lose with in-mast furling. Laminate and in-mast furling go together like cookies and cream.

After considering hydranet and North 3Di I went with a carbon/technora laminate mainsail with an exterior taffeta very similar to Dockhead’s. The only difference seems that mine is a “one piece” laminate as opposed to tri-radial construction.
It’s on a 50 foot 16 ton monohull with in mast furling. I’ve experienced all of the advantages Dockhead references with the exception of durability as I’ve only been using it for about a month of cruising but my expectations are high.
The immediate benefit to sailing performance and furling have been remarkable.

A thanks to Dockhead for the data points...it played into my decision.

[wingssail]

We have laminate "membrane" racing sails, (the main with 2 taffeta skins and the genoa with one side taffeta) and a very old North tri radial Kevlar genoa. The rest of our sails, including the cruising sails are Dacron. This is for reason of cost.

Despite the purported long durability of the modern laminates I just cannot put out $3000-$8000 each for 2-3 more sails. My Dacron cruising main and jibs are about $1000-$2000 each, purchased in China.

I don't use the racing sails while cruising, I am still dubious about the longevity, although reports like dockhead's and others make me think it might be OK to do so.

I will say, however, that I have found the single taffeta genoa to be a bit delicate. We have cut it and punctured it three times in two seasons and it broke my heart each time, especially since the damage was caused by carelessly exposed sharp bits and I blame myself. We were easily able to repair the small damaged areas but still, I worry. Previous headsails did no demonstrate this issue.

The other big worry I have is the wear caused by tacking. It does not seem to bother the mainsail but the genoa is whacked up against the rig and lifelines on every tack and I just cannot imagine this not causing accumulated long term damage. I think that double taffeta would have been more durable but I was worried about the weight. This is a light air sail.

Anyhow, we'll take the best care we can and buy a new one of the same construction when it is needed. The cruising sails will stay Dacron for the reasons I mentioned.

[rom]

Originally Posted by CaptRehab

I am having a Hydranet Tri-radial fully battened mainsail made for my Nautitech 441 at Voile Caraibe Incidences in Martinique. I am hoping it will maintain its shape for a long time. I like to sail whenever possible. The jib is a simple cross cut Dacron but only 2 years old. I considered the 3DI Nordac cruising sail but felt that the higher modulus oriented fibers would be a better match for the high loads on the catamaran. Reefing at the proper time should also help extend the life of the sail

Hi, I had a rather good experience with those guys when they repaired my gennaker. How much is it for the mainsail ? yours is 63m² right ? Did you get a quote for the genoa as well ? cheers